


I live for your laudation and for your laudation I live

by Baryshnikov



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Death Eaters, Infatuation, Insanity, Is this love or a messed up father-son relationship?, M/M, Obsession, Stream of Consciousness, wedding vows
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-02-12
Updated: 2019-02-12
Packaged: 2019-10-27 04:12:49
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,607
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17759549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Baryshnikov/pseuds/Baryshnikov
Summary: Barty and his Lord were ever so alike





	I live for your laudation and for your laudation I live

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Vodka20 (Cirilla9)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Cirilla9/gifts).



> Well this was completely unintentional, but I finally got the urge to write these two again, so I hope its not a complete disaster.

His Lord did not sleep, he did not need to. He was above such human urges, at least that was what he told the others. That he was above such mortal weaknesses, because _he_ was no longer mortal. Barty knew otherwise, knew that just like him his Lord could not sleep. Something in their psyche attracting them to the dark, made them stand out on the balcony, the wind chilling their hands, watching how the moon-bleached the world with white. Barty couldn’t sleep, he never did. He couldn’t. Every time he closed his eyes, he saw things that scared him, so he opened them and went to find his Lord. Went to stand by his side, three feet away, because that was simply where he belonged, for better or for worse. 

His Lord was many things, many things that the others did not see him as. They all saw the power, the supreme influence that his Lord wielded in the tips of his fingers. They all saw his dominant authority, the undeniable power that existed in living forever. Only Barty saw the intellectual brilliance behind it. The simple awe-inspiring talent that it took to do something quite like that. He appreciated his Lord in a way no one else did. They were all too busy cowering or manipulating or scheming to get what they wanted. They only followed his Lord for their own gain, to fulfil their own desires, to achieve their own ends. They all followed because they saw his Lord as a means by which to achieve their ambitions. Bellatrix followed because a sick yearning, Lucius followed for power, Evan followed to create chaos, Regulus followed because he had to, Rabastan followed because he bored. Barty knew he was the only one to follow out of genuine devotion, the only one who truly felt for his Lord, felt respect and admiration, and a feeling he couldn’t articulate that burned holes in his stomach. He didn’t _know_ what that feeling was, but he could take a guess, and he didn’t know what to feel about the answer. He tried to put it to the side, to ignore it, after all, why should he dwell on it, when there were more important things to dwell on, like how his Lord stared out across the stars. When it was just the two of them, Barty thought the similarities were overwhelming, that they were painfully alike in all the best ways, and as such, they were meant to be, for richer and for poorer. 

They were both clever, his Lord had always told him so, told him so many times that Barty had an exceptionally beautiful mind. Sometimes, when he was paying attention and the night was empty, he could feel his Lord scratching around his skull, not hurting him, at least not deliberately, just exploring, just learning, just understanding what his own mind would look like from another’s perspective. Barty knew other people did not like his Lord scratching, did not like the feeling of him scraping through their head, the grating made them wince and try to fight it back. Those other people were people like Lucius. Barty had watched him go all tense and try and close up the parts of his mind he didn’t want anyone to see. That was a dangerous game to play because no matter how many walls were built, his Lord would always tear them down. That was why Barty didn’t bother. That, and he had no reason to fear was his Lord might find. He had nothing by devotion in his head and in his heart. So, he kept himself wide open for his Lord, open, and exposed, and vulnerable, and most importantly, trusting. He trusted his Lord, and in return his Lord trusted him.  
They both had disappointing families. Their fathers were disappointing, as were their mothers, in an entirely different way. His Lord was disappointed with the world and deeply disappointed with the people who brought him into it, the people who left great gaping spaces in his world. Barty was sure he was the only one who knew _everything_ about his Lord, he was certainly the only one his Lord had told with his own mouth. His Lord had told him on a night like this, staring out across the black, standing three feet apart talking of things other people wouldn’t understand. His Lord had taught him not to feel guilty for hating his father, to not feel guilty to hate anyone, if there was a good reason to hate them. Barty honestly wondered whether his Lord saw himself in him. Whether he saw how Barty felt, surrounded by people whose wavelength he wasn’t quite on. Of anyone, he was closest to Evan, but Evan didn’t quite understand, didn’t quite know what it was like to be him. His Lord spoke of times like that. Someone, he had never said his name, but he was there, a shadow in his Lord’s early life, just someone who didn’t quite understand what it was like to be truly extraordinary but stood by his side regardless.  
They were both interested in people. They like to watch them and try and find the things they know are missing from themselves. People meant something different to them than to others. To others, people were important, they had feelings, they had desires, but to them, people were merely flesh and bone brought to life by something no one quite understood. The human condition, whatever it was, was completely fascinating. Barty had seen how interested his Lord was, how intrigued by the simplest human functions. He would study them, just watching and learning, satisfying his own curiosity without his subjects ever being aware of it. He also knew the thing that fascinated his Lord the most was pain, though he gained no pleasure from inflicting it himself. He was just beguiled by what it did, what it turned people into, and the more that Barty thought about it, that was exactly what he was interested in as well. As to watch people cry did not give him the satisfaction that it gave Evan, to hear people scream did not make his stomach curl like it did Avery. He got no joy from hurting people – it was just something that was beautiful in a way, so uncontrollable, so haunting that left shadows forever flowing just below his consciousness. People were broken by pain in a way they were not broken by anything else. But he also understood that it had to be done, regardless of what he thought of the morality of such actions. His Lord had reminded him of that when they stood out in the cold, that death was to most an inevitability, and that whilst he too gained no satisfaction from this endless death, it had to be done or people would never learn. Some people simply had to die for the greater good, and the greater good was the most important thing in the world. The future, the dream that they were building one block at a time. His Lord liked him because he understood, because he knew, and because he believed in that future, during his Lord’s sickness and in his health.

His Lord shared also his madness, that was the most obvious similarity, but the one Barty was sure his Lord did not notice. He did not see that he was mad, even when it felt so painfully obvious. It was difficult to see madness if you weren’t looking for it, but Barty had lived with it for so long that he knew exactly what it looked like. It was no longer madness to him, not in the way others envisioned it, with white padded walls and gnashing teeth and hopeless men in long white coats. Madness to him was merely a state, it came and went and sometimes he lost himself in it, sometimes he found himself, sometimes he went full circle and came out empty handed. But whatever he did, he couldn’t escape from it. It was simply part of him, and that was why he understood his Lord better than anyone else in the world because whether he admitted it or not, his Lord was as mad as he was. There were connections in his brain that simply didn’t make sense and no matter how long Barty attempted to construe them, it was in vain. Madness and brilliance were so closely interwoven that it was easy to mistake one for the other, easy to fuel the wrong one and only realise when your mind was burning down around you. But Barty understood, Barty knew what it was like to stand alone in a burning building, just waiting to be consumed by things that were no longer under his control, Barty knew what that was like and he knew that no matter what, he’d never abandon his Lord; he had set down his vows, always to love and always to cherish. 

His Lord did not sleep, he didn’t need to. That was why they stood, closer than before, looking out over a white-washed world, the chill settling into their bones. Barty’s arm outstretched, just another white stretch in the world of black. He let his Lord trace the snake with his nails, curling from the mouth to tail, making Barty’s skin prickle and those holes in his stomach stretch wider, still smouldering at the edges. In these intimate moments, he reminded his Lord in his own quiet way that they were ever so alike, and those who are alike should stay together, till death do them part.


End file.
